Monty waved off my concern. “Pop ’em in the Cat-mobile. No one will know the difference.”
He backed out through the cargo area and unfolded the stroller on the pavement beside my door. I removed the CATS ON BOARD sign from its side. We’d have better luck sneaking the cats into prohibited places, I reasoned, with a more incognito approach.
Rupert was still making disgruntled noises about the hotel’s feline exclusionary policies when I loaded him and his sister into the carriage. After I double-checked that the mesh cover’s zipper was securely fastened, we headed off across the parking lot to the hotel’s back entrance.
A swinging gate in a white fence opened to a concretepaved courtyard behind the hotel’s main building. The combination of brick and wooden siding had been painted in sections of white and dark forest green, the same motif as the front balcony that overlooked Broad Street. We walked past a couple of smaller cottages that flanked the courtyard’s rear side and approached a screen door leading into the hotel’s main wing.
Bold block letters greeted us on a hand-painted sign affixed to the middle of the door: NO PETS.
Monty waved it off dismissively. He leaned over the stroller and whispered reassuringly to its furry occupants, “I’m sure they don’t mean
you
.”
Nervously, I unzipped the net cover and reached inside to fluff the towels up around Rupert and Isabella.
“Stay very quiet,” I cautioned the cats as Monty propped open the door and helped me lift the stroller over the threshold.
We stepped into a narrow hallway lined with plaques, most of them black-and-white photos featuring Gold Rush scenes of Nevada City. At the end of the hall, we arrived at a longer corridor that ran the length of the building. After conducting a quick recon, Monty directed me to the left.
Following the
clumpity-clunk
of Monty’s cycling shoes, I pushed the stroller past the top of a staircase that dropped down to the hotel’s lower-front street level. The stairs were accompanied by a pair of heavy wooden banisters that matched the overall theme of red carpeting and fleur-delis-covered wallpaper we’d encountered thus far.
The hotel’s somewhat primitive administrative offices were positioned just opposite the stairs. A gated window provided guest access to the registration desk, whose office equipment, while not dating back to the Gold Rush, definitely qualified as antiquated.
Farther down the hall loomed a large salon. If the abundance of wallpaper I could glimpse from this angle was any indication, that room seemed the most likely location for a bookcase and, I thought hopefully, a dictionary.
As quickly and as nonchalantly as possible, I pushed the stroller past the registration desk and scooted down the hallway to the salon. The woman seated in the area behind the gated window took no notice. She was facing the opposite direction, poring over an appointment book as she spoke into a phone’s large plastic receiver. Monty leaned against the counter, waiting for her to finish so he could check into the suite of rooms that had been reserved for the Mayor.
“We’re all booked up for the weekend,” the woman told the caller plaintively. “I’d say that goes for everything within a thirty-mile radius. There’s a bike race here tomorrow, you know.”
I parked the stroller in the center of the salon and turned a slow circle, taking in the surrounding furnishings and décor. Outside of Oscar’s kitchen, I’d never seen such a heavily wallpapered room. I counted three, no four, different patterns plastered across just one wall. Only the glass windows that framed the balcony had escaped the wallpaper’s plastering reach. Perhaps this, I thought wryly, was where Oscar had acquired his fascination with the stuff.
Back at the front desk, the woman hung up the phone’s receiver and turned to face Monty. Snippets of their conversation floated out into the salon as I continued my search for a dictionary.
“You say you’re checking in for the Mayor of San Francisco?” the clerk asked skeptically.
The middle of the room had been left open to facilitate guest traffic, but a clutter of antiques and memorabilia were stacked up around its edges. Several humongous pieces of wooden furniture were cloistered against the walls, including a heavy wood-paneled piano that looked to weigh at least half a ton. Brass trinkets and lace doilies decorated every flat surface.
I found a vintage typewriter tucked into a recess behind the stairwell, which continued from the salon to the hotel’s upper floors. The machine’s lettered keys pronged out from the keyboard like fangs—the device looked as if it were more suited for eating a piece of paper than printing on it.
As I bent over the typewriter, the desk clerk’s words echoed into the salon, the volume of her voice rising in tandem with her suspicions. “You don’t
look
like the Mayor of San Francisco. Your hair’s too curly,” she protested. “I’ve seen pictures of him. He’s got that swept back gangsterstyle hairdo.”
I moved on from the typewriter to a photo album spread open next to a stack of pamphlets advertising wedding services. Nuptials appeared to be the hotel’s main focus—that is, when the town wasn’t hosting a cycling event. I put my hands on my hips as I scanned the area. Where might they be hiding the dictionary?
“Assistant life coach?” The woman now sounded truly perplexed.
“Ahem.” Monty corrected the clerk, the sound of his voice increasing to match hers. “I said I was the Life Coach
Apprentice
.”
“What in
tarnation
is a life coach?”
I smothered a giggle as I spotted a small credenza squeezed into an empty space behind the piano. On it lay a thick age-crusted dictionary. I quickly thumbed through the pages to the
S
section.
“Is this a joke?” the clerk demanded warily. “Are you with one of those reality TV shows? Am I on
Candid Camera
?”
I ran the tip of my finger down the column until I found the listing for
stoat
.
“Ermine,” I reported in a loud whisper to Isabella, who was watching me closely through the stroller’s mesh netting. Rupert had curled up for a nap when I’d tucked him into the towels and was now happily snoring away, oblivious to the commotion at the front desk.
My lips puckered in thought as I studied the picture of the creature next to the listing in the dictionary. “It looks like a mink or a ferret. It’s kind of slender—with a long furry tail.” I reflected back on the DeVoto description of the animal on the original Bear Flag. “It
is
standing up on its hind legs . . . ”
Returning to the stroller, I pulled out the tablet with my earlier sketch of the Bear Flag. I rotated the drawing of the pig-modified bear to the left and right, trying to figure out how to modify the animal to make it resemble a stoat. After a couple minutes of attempting to mentally superimpose the stoat image over that of the bear, I used my pencil to add a long, thick tail.
“
Wrao
,” Isabella said thoughtfully when I showed her my drawing.
“I know,” I replied, puzzling at the picture. “That doesn’t look like any bear I’ve ever seen.”
Chapter 23
THE BRICK
A WAVE OF
white-haired patrons poured out of the Nevada Theatre, happily chatting about the evening’s performance as they strolled down Broad Street. While there were a few dissenters, most agreed Clem had made an admirable attempt at his Mark Twain impersonation.
The citizens of Nevada City were quite particular about their Twain impersonators—the town had hosted dozens of Twain-inspired actors over the years. This, however, was the first time anyone could remember a Twain character working the Bear Flag story into his routine.
Trailing behind the departing theatergoers, Dilla and Wang were the last of the audience to leave the theater. Dilla skipped looping circles across the sidewalk as Wang, with the support of his cane, hobbled a slow straight line.
“He was pretty good, don’t you think?” Dilla trilled merrily.
Wang managed a weak smile in response.
“I can’t wait to see what’s on tap for tomorrow,” she said, gazing up at a nearby streetlamp and the pairing of American and California state flags mounted just below its light fixture. “Sacramento should be beautiful this time of year.”
Wang continued his turtlelike pace down Broad Street’s steep hill, his wizened face pinched in thought. He nodded absentmindedly to his wife as he pondered what Frank Napis might be planning to do with the information he had gained inside the Nevada Theatre.
PAST THE LOBBY
, through the empty theater, down a narrow flight of concrete steps to the area beneath the stage reserved for stagehands and performers, the afternoon’s Mark Twain impersonator shuffled sideways through the slim width of a dressing room doorway.
Clem carried a large plastic shopping sack in one hand; the strap of a bulky duffel bag was slung across the opposite shoulder. After a short struggle, he managed to fit both his body and the packages through the opening. Dropping his bundles on the dressing room floor, he turned to lock the door.
The room was long and narrow, its eight-foot length ample space for an actor to change costumes, apply makeup, and practice lines before a performance. One of the longer walls was taken up by a rectangular-shaped mirror, which rested on top of a slender wooden dressing table.
Clem shrugged out of his rumpled linen suit coat and, with a casual flick of his wrist, tossed the jacket onto the angled hook of a burnished brass coat rack.
Rolling his shoulders, he stretched his neck to the left and right, squeezing out the inevitable tension that had built up over an hour’s worth of theatrical work on the stage. He swooped his arms and upper torso into a few awkward yoga moves that probably did more harm than good. Then, he bent over the dressing table and stared intently at his reflection.
The basement-level dressing room had a vintage, aged look. It had escaped the modernizing renovations that had been performed on the theater’s upper level, leaving the brick walls exposed to the interior. The only recent maintenance of note was a fresh coat of baby blue paint that lightened the otherwise dark windowless space.
Over the past hundred-plus years, an endless parade of notable human faces had primped and preened in this dressing room, and the painted bricks had taken careful note of each and every one. Decades of facial images were stored within their collective memory, an unwritten record documented in their compacted clay, sand, stone, and mortar. The role of historical observer was an important aspect of their existence, one the bricks considered almost as important as the task of holding up the building. It was with this responsibility in mind that they eagerly scrutinized the reflection of the man who had just entered the dressing room.
There was a vague familiarity about his wild flyaway eyebrows and bristly mustache. So, too, the thick protrusion of his nose, which was slightly bent along its bridge as if it had seen action in a bar brawl or two. The bricks mulled over these distinguishing features as they closed in on a match to one of the thousands of faces in their memory, conferring first among themselves to ensure that they were all in agreement.
A wall took its strength from the unity and collaboration of its members. If even one brick ventured to speculate outside of the collected consensus, it risked bringing down the entire structure. Rarely did the bricks have difficulty reconciling their thoughts and, on this issue, they easily came to a unanimous decision. Yes, they concluded, the imitator bore a striking resemblance to the original.
The bricks watched as Clem gently patted the left front pocket of his collared shirt.
“Hello there, little friend,” he said as a tiny whiskered face poked out of the pocket.
A murmur of excitement passed through the wall. What’s that? the bricks puzzled, curiously edging against one another to get a glimpse of the creature that crawled shyly from the pocket and into the palm of Clem’s hand.
The bricks quickly came to a clear identification.
It’s a mouse!
they exclaimed in proud giddy unison. But a moment later, an undercurrent of confusion rippled through their ranks.
Strange that the little mouse has no hair . . . Odd that it’s wearing a furry green jacket . . .
Clem heard the slight floating whisper of the bricks, but he dismissed the sound as merely the natural creaks and moans of an old building. After setting the mouse on the dresser, he strode across the dressing room to the spot where he had dropped his packages. He picked up the shopping sack, carried it back across the room, and placed it on a shelf next to the dressing table.
Ooh, that tickles, the bricks thought, giggling to themselves as Clem dug around inside the bag, causing it to brush against the wall. His right hand finally emerged holding a small plastic makeup case, which he laid on top of the dressing table.
Clem returned to the area in front of the door and picked up the duffel bag. With effort, he wrapped the bag’s strap over his right shoulder and lugged it across the room to the shelf. The bulging contents strained against the teeth of the zipper that ran down the duffel’s length.
The wall winced as Clem turned, smacking the bag against it. A grumble of complaint issued from those bricks receiving the brunt of the impact. The building braced itself, preparing to accept the weight of the bag, as Clem swung it toward the wall and thunked it down onto the shelf.
After a moment of paralyzed apprehension, the wall oozed out a sigh of relief. The duffel, the bricks now realized, was more bulk than weight. How silly of them to have worried, they chuckled. This building had stood for a hundred and fifty years. There was nothing in this bag the wall couldn’t handle.
Clem let out a slight groan as he paused to massage his right shoulder where the strap had rubbed against his skin.